Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A while back in the old forum you posted a feeding schedule for your tegu that seemed great...I searched but could not locate this post...if you have a keyword, link or if you could repost it I would be so grateful!

Thanks!
Nicole

Now, the proud owner of 2 B & W Tegus!

Hello Nicole!

I'm glad that you like my little menu! I found it for you and am posting it in here for ya!

As far as diet goes, I'll give you a run down of his weekly feeding schedule (definitely add some crickets into the diet for the youngsters and I'd go ahead and dust them with MinerAll every time I fed). Blake would eat crickets for about the first month that I had him, after that he totally ignored them.

Sun. - 1 chunk of freshly thawed, raw, lean ground turkey with
crushed bone meal sprinkled on top.

Mon. - 1 chunk (chunk meaning a chunk of food equally a little
more than he can eat in one day) canned Natural Balance
(very great quality all natural food) dog or cat food with
Herptivite sprinkled on top.

Tue. - 1 chunk of thawed, raw, lean ground turkey with Rep-Cal
calcium powder prinkled on top.

Wed. - 1 pre-killed adult mouse.

Thur. - 1 chunk of canned Natural Balance dog or cat food with
MinerAll sprinkled on top.

Fri. - 1 frozen cube of tegu smoothie (I'll give the recipe at
the end of this post) thawed.

Sat. - 1 chunk of thawed, raw, lean ground turkey with
crushed bone meal sprinkled on top.

So basically I just keep alternating the days of raw meat and canned dog or cat food and keep alternating what supplements I put on them. My four supplements are MinerAll, Herptivite, Rep-Cal calcium, and crushed bone meal. However, I do keep his Wed. and Fri. the same every week.

You might be wondering where the fruits and veggies are in his diet. Well, since he won't eat them strait out I mixed them into his smoothie. The smoothie recipe is: 5 whole eggs, 1 mango, 1 banana, 1 orange, 1 tspn bone meal, 1 tspn MinerAll, 1 tspn Herptivite, and 1 tspn Rep-Cal calcium. Then I poured it into an ice tray and froze it. Blake absolutely LOVES the stuff!!

I hope that that helps you out some.

Lindsay

Thanks for reposting this...it really helps since I'm new to tegus. How old are your tegus? And when you say a chunk...about how much does he eat in a day? I want to be sure they are eating the way they are supposed to.
I'm trying to find turkey but for some reason the local supermarket only carries chicken, beef veal etc...so I bought some chicken and am going to start hunting for turkey somewhere else....
I was told raw eggs were not so good...then again I was told raw meat WAS good, then someone else said to cook it sooo....you could say I'm confused.
When the meat is raw and sitting in the cage it would have to go bad fast no?

Thanks
Nicolee

Hey Nicole!

Okay, I'm going to try and answer your questions to the best of my abilities and where I leave off I'm sure someone else will pick up the slack.

First I'll tell you about my tegus (my favorite past time)! I currently have only two tegus. One colombian black and white, Blake, who's a year and a few months old. I love him to death! He's definitely my baby, even though I hate to have favorites. My second tegu is a chilean dwarf tegu named Tweak. She came with the name but it fits her. She's about a year and a half as far as I know. I got her from a friend of mine's room mate. The guy wasn't take proper care of her and my friend convinced him to sell her. And later this summer I'll be receiving a female baby blue tegu from Ron St. Pierre. I'm WAY excited about that. But enough of that.

For Blake, a chunk of meat is about a handful. That's about how much he'll eat in a day with a little extra left after he's done.

I had to really look in the meat section of Fred Meyers before I saw the turkey and even harder to find the lean turkey. They don't have it labeled as it's own section and I think it's right by the beef.

As far as raw eggs go, I've heard both sides of it. Some people say it's horrible, but I haven't heard a whole lot of reasoning as to why. And some say that it's fine. I've seen pictures from various small scale breeders where they feed raw eggs and haven't as yet had any problems. The only problem that I have with Blake is that it makes his poop a little runnier and it smells really really bad. That's why I mix in all that other good stuff to outweigh any possible negatives.

As far as the meat going bad, yeah, it will go bad. Once he's done eating and goes back into his hide box to sleep I remove the food bowl and throw away anything that he hasn't eaten and clean out the bowl.

I hope that helps! And congratulations on your tegus!!!! I swear, they are the best lizard ever!

Lindsay

I believe Bert's reasoning (and Ron St.Pierre according to his website) is that it creates a biotin deficiency over a period of time...but it takes a long time from what I have read.
If you run a search on your browser for Biotin Deficiency Raw Eggs, you will recieve all that info. I have a little here that I took off one of the sites:

"Biotin is considered part of the B-complex family. Biotin deficiencies cause problems in three major areas -- the immune system, nerves and muscles, and hair and skin. That is because biotin is a crucial part of several human enzyme systems -- enzymes that control such critical functions as white blood cell activity, protein manufacture, fatty acid manufacture and metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and sugar metabolism.
In the 1930s, the first biotin deficiencies were induced in animals accidentally by feeding the animals a diet rich in uncooked egg whites. It was discovered later that raw egg whites contain a substance that destroys naturally occurring biotin, both in food and in body tissues, while cooked egg whites do not contain the substance. The animals lost their fur and suffered weight loss and paralysis. Unfortunately, before the cause of the problem was discovered and corrected, some died."

Now looking at your menu it doesn't look like a problem being you feed it so seldom in your week. The reason I started mine on hard boiled eggs is because that is what they were used to eating (at Agama) and both have been at Agama for a year, so it's not l;ike they didn't already have habits. They eat the shells and everything (the shells are supposed to be a good source of natural calcium)....once I made scrambled eggs and broke up the shells and put them in...you should have seen my husbands face!

Thanks!
Nicole